THE CUP OF SORROW After winning in 1940, the Rangers burned to break a jinx that brought heartache for 53 years

THE CONSTANT WAS THE NUMBER (1940). The players inside theuniforms of the New York Rangers changed and management changed andthe arenas changed and the sticks changed and the skates changed andstyles certainly changed, short hair to long hair to hair hiddeninside plastic helmets, but the number never changed (1940). Therewas no relief from the number (1940). It was painted in messy strokesacross bedsheets (1940) and printed in bold type in headlines (1940)and shouted by loud antagonists everywhere (1940). Would there be noend? The Curse of the Rangers (1940).''I paid a bill for pizza this year,'' Ranger president andgeneral manager Neil Smith said. ''The amount was $19.40. I used toeat at a place in Detroit called The 1940 Chop House.''The number represented the last year the Rangers had won the Cup(1940). There was no proof that a curse existed, but all those yearsof ineptitude (53) also offered no proof against its existence. Eachshot that hit a crossbar, each leading scorer who limped away with abroken ankle, each happenstance was added ammunition for true (1940)believers.The articles about the Curse were pat and simple. A few grainypictures would be shown, say, of D Day (1944). D Day? America hadn'teven entered World War II when the Rangers last won this Cup. PearlHarbor hadn't been bombed (1941). A little Glenn Miller music wouldbe played, giving way to Elvis and then the Beatles and then, fastforward, right up to Pearl Jam (1994). The Montreal Canadiens had won23 Cups, and the Cleveland Indians had even won a pennant (1954), andsometimes it seemed as if Washington had crossed the Delaware (1776)and Edison had invented the lightbulb (1879) since a Ranger hadskated across the ice with Lord Stanley's trophy (1940).''One year it's a left wing we need to win the . . . we don't evenmention the words for it in our house,'' Clare Prevot, formerpresident of the Ranger Fan Club, an on-again, off-againseason-ticket holder since the days of Camille Henry and Harry Howell(1953), said in a typical lament. ''We get the left wing, and thenit's a defenseman we need. Then it's a center. Nothing seems to work.I've learned not to expect anything. You're always going to bedisappointed.''Just two years ago my husband and I made plans to go to Torontofor a game near the end of the season. That was the year of theplayers' strike. The game was canceled. We had nonrefundable planetickets, though, so we went anyway. We figured we could at least goto the Hockey Hall of Fame and see the . . . what we won't mention.You know what happened? It was out on loan. All this time, and westill haven't seen it.''Two stories, take your pick, were associated with the origin ofthe Curse. One centered around a picture of General John ReedKilpatrick and the other officers of Madison Square Garden, owner ofthe Rangers, burning the mortgage to the Garden in the Cup aftermaking their last payment (1941). Wasn't that a sacrilege, using theCup as a hibachi? Wasn't it courting doom from any and all hockeygods?The second story involved Red Dutton, manager of the competing NewYork Americans. The Rangers forced the Americans out of business in1941, and Dutton supposedly said, ''The Rangers never will win theCup again in my lifetime.'' Wasn't that a flat-out declaration of theCurse? ''A lot of that was newspaper stuff,'' Dutton said with a winka few years before his death (1987), ''but newspapers can be rightsometimes.''Whatever happened -- or didn't happen -- a lot of bad hockeycertainly followed. The Rangers made the Cup final only once (1950)in the next 32 years. In the first 27 of those years, playing in asix-team league in which the top four teams qualified for theplayoffs, the Rangers qualified only nine times and never won morethan two games in a best-of-seven series except in 1950, when theybeat the Canadiens in round 1 and lost Game 7 in double OT to theDetroit Red Wings for the Cup.An NHL rule in the 1950s and '60s giving teams territorial rightsto all young players who lived within 50 miles of their cities workedagainst the Rangers, with Montreal collecting talent from Quebec andthe Toronto Maple Leafs collecting talent from Ontario and even theChicago Blackhawks and the Detroit Red Wings able to reach across theborder. The Rangers were left to reach across to prospectless NewJersey.New York practiced in a tiny rink called Iceland, which was tuckedaway in the nether regions of the old Madison Square Garden; one endof it was shaped like an egg, and the boards were made of metal, sopucks sounded like bullets as they ricocheted everywhere. Who couldhandle that? And if the Rangers did make the playoffs? The Garden wasnot available. The circus already had been booked for the buildingevery spring, and the Rangers had to play their most important gameson the road.''There always was something,'' said John Halligan, the Rangers'public- relations director from 1963 to '83 and from '86 to '90.''Even in the new Garden, which opened in 1968, there was a plan tohave a practice rink, full- sized, as part of the building. Then theGarden management noticed the bowling boom. The practice rink wasscrapped, and 48 lanes took its place.''Mentions of the number (1940) and the Curse really were not madeoften until the 1970s. The Rangers then made two trips to the Cupfinals ('72 and '79) and failed. It did not help in '72 that leadingscorer Jean Ratelle missed the finals with a broken ankle. It did nothelp in '79 that coach Fred Shero, after an opening-game win inMontreal, chose to keep the Rangers in the city rather than move intoseclusion, far from the nightlife on Crescent Street. Nor did it helpthat in warmups before Game 2, a practice shot felled the Canadiens'surprise starting goaltender, Bunny Laroque, and Ken Dryden had toplay. Dryden and the Habs then went on to win the next four straight.

The latest disappointment came two years ago (1992). Mark Messierhad been acquired and had pronounced that he was ''sick of seeingthat number wherever we go'' (1940). The Rangers stormed to the bestrecord in the league. Then the players went on strike a week beforethe season ended. Everyone sat for 10 days. The playoffs began, andthe Rangers were bounced in six games by the Pittsburgh Penguins inthe second round. And then the talk and the signs of the Curse becamebigger and louder.''It got crazier and crazier,'' Jim McDonald, a Rangerseason-ticket holder, says. ''That's all you heard, the Curse. Therenever was any curse. Do you know what is a curse in sports? Badteams. Look at all the teams that are supposed to have curses -- theRed Sox, the Cubs, whatever. They're all bad. The Rangers were bad.This year, they're good. They're the best.''So it has ended. The Rangers are champions. So much for the number(1940). ^ So much for the years (53). A light has been turned on, andthe beast in the basement has turned out to be the oil heater ormaybe some noisy pipes or maybe a shade flapping next to an openwindow. Or maybe Red Dutton and the hockey gods simply decided togive a lot of accursed people a break.